Unilab Keeps Growing Keeps Growing Despite Globalization

Jose Y. Campos
By: Tony Lopez | Manila Times
15 May 2006 | 12:00 AM

With more than 350 brands in 900 stock sizes, Unilab has a fifth of the local drug market, despite being pitted against the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. Unilab has just opened a state-of-the-art P1.5 billion manufacturing facility in Mamplasan and Santa Rosa, Laguna. It has consolidated its logistics at its Laguna warehouse which says CEO Carlos “Doe” Ejercito, “can take in seven jumbo jets or the size of 70 basketball courts.”

Unilab keeps growing despite globalization, the entry of regional brands and low-priced rivals, mergers among the drug giants, diminishing purchasing power, and the emergence of private labels. In 2004, the company launched 40 new products and in 2005, another 60 new products, including one containing soluble calcium.

Many of Unilab’s products are now leading brands not only in the Philippines but also in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Myanmar. Four products make billion-peso annual sales each: Cetrin, Enervon, Alaxan, and Amoxiclav, a powerful antibiotic. Unilab recently launched Andros, rival to Viagra but it has yet to make a big headway. It is also going heavily into what is called “lifestyle products.”

In business, JY believed in meaningful relationships which he said should be for life. He also believed that goodbyes should be better than hellos. As a boy, JY wanted to become a military officer and passed the entrance exam at Whampoa Military Academy near Canton. But his father had other plans for him. He sent him to the Philippines. Earlier, his elder brother, Yao Shiong Shio, had gone ahead to the Philippines and put up his YSS Laboratories.

JY’s success seems rooted in a very simple formula—produce quality medicines that are priced reasonably, not burdened by heavy transfer pricing by multinationals. JY picked his people well. CEO Doe Ejercito was a celebrated Citibanker for his systems skills. JY provided the people skills. Whenever JY hired a person, he asked his people only one question: “Mabuting tao ba ’yan [Is he a good person]?” JY was a good person—humble, kind, caring, and hardworking. He is a great loss to Philippine business and to the country.